GOD CAN BE TRUSTED

I am a mother of eight precious children. While I understand the world’s viewpoint of limiting the number of children one has because of  the desire to have more time for one’s self and  to have more things to enjoy, I find these reasons to be contrary to the biblical call to surrender ourselves and our ambitions to God.

Should this surrender not also fundamentally include the surrender of our bodies to God to use however He sees fit, including to be used to bear children for His Name?

It’s as if Christians believe that God needs help in this area because He really can’t be trusted to limit the size of our family to a number that is manageable for us. In my opinion, it comes down to a choice of either believing His Word, or not believing it.

In the Old Testament it says “It is I who open and close the womb.” Does He, or doesn’t He?  I think many of us believe that once we have proved ourselves to be fertile, that the number of children we have escapes God’s control.  If Romans 12:1 calls us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”, does this exclude the surrender of our wombs, the very thing that distinguishes us as women from men?

I don’t mean to sound condemning, because I personally understand the struggle that goes on in trusting God in this area. I have been given eight healthy pregnancies according to God’s plan, but many times I was tempted during the middle of my child-bearing years to wonder how many more children I could cope with.

I had several of them less than two years apart and was tempted to think that I was just a baby machine, with no particular divine oversight involved. But now that I have ceased to bear children, I am so thankful that I did not allow those doubts and fears to keep me from allowing God to give me as many children as He saw fit.

I can even testify that He is faithful even in knowing when to allow miscarriage because I miscarried my last pregnancy at the age of 45.

I was of course, excited to be expecting again, but also felt overwhelmed because of the pressures I felt in raising the eight children I already had, as well as feeling the pressure of concern over my husband’s health (he has chronic Hepatitis C, which he apparently contracted while serving in Viet Nam), as well as struggling with financial pressures, etc.  Yet, in spite of these concerns, I knew I could trust the Lord to determine what I could handle.

It was right at this time of acceptance of this tenth pregnancy (I also miscarried my first) that the Lord chose to allow me to miscarry so that this precious little one could be in His care. I don’t believe that it was coincidence that He took this child the very next morning after I had surrendered all of my concerns to Him during the night before. I believe He was again demonstrating His wisdom and knowledge in exercising control over my life.

This world teaches that we should trust our own judgment when anticipating the future and what we think we can handle, but Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us not to “lean on our own understanding, but to trust in the Lord with all our hearts.”

I doubt if Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have chosen to become pregnant in her situation, but she said, “Be it done to me according to Thy will.” Her pregnancy was not convenient or timely in human terms, but God had a plan far greater than she could understand.

Psalm 127 says “Children are gifts from the Lord”. Has His Word ceased to be true in this modern age?  Are we going to believe the culture around us or His eternal, unchangeable Word?

I don’t believe, as many churches teach, that it is irresponsible to allow God to have control over our wombs even when we face financial or other temporal pressures. God says He will not give us more than we can handle (I Corinthians 10:13).

The very children we accept from Him could someday be the key to alleviate some of those pressures we feel.  It used to be that children were considered a financial asset, rather than a liability.  But now that so many children are indulged, rather than taught to work and honor their parents with their finances, we consider children a liability because we want to give them all the gadgets the world has to offer.

Let me encourage you, as a mom who has experienced the reward of having grown children who are an asset to our family’s income, to trust the Lord during these comparatively short years of child bearing.

Don’t allow fear to rob you of the joy God has planned for you as you trust Him with everything, even your very body.  He is faithful and blessings await those of us who will trust and obey.

VAL HALLORAN

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